A Study On The Beet Queen From The Perspective Of Intelligible Systems

Louise Erdrich is one of the most important Native American female writers in contemporary America,She is also one of the most prolific and celebrated contemporary Native American writers,obtaining great success in novel,poetry and children's literature.The Beet Queen(1986)is Louise Erdrich's second novel and is also one of her "North Dakota Tetralogy".This novel is rich in content and profound in meaning,and it contains abundant elements worth exploring.So far,domestic and foreign scholars' studies on this novel have focused mainly on narrative strategy,ethnicity,theme,family system,symbol,characters and space shift,and few on its literary anthropological elements.Considering the precious literary anthropological materials embodied in this novel,this thesis analyzes it from the perspective of literary anthropology to explore the contained anthropological information about the Ojibwa tribe.This thesis,based on Fernando Poyatos's theory of intelligible systems,mainly explores the anthropological information about the Ojibwa tribe embodied in The Beet Queen from religion,society and politics.The intelligible systems is a subsystem of the systems in literary anthropology put forward by Fernando Poyatos,covering the macro aspects of the research subjects of the whole research system.According to the theory of intelligible systems,religion can be further divided into god(s)and mythology,thoughts and beliefs,ritual,etc.Religion is an important part of Ojibwas' life.Before the invasion of the whites,Ojibwas have their own traditional religion,which has been gradually marginalized later under the impact of Christianity after the invasion.Society can be further divided into family and marriage,moral values,child rearing,etc.Ojibwa people attach great importance to family and marriage and they advocate moral values such as universal fraternity,collectivism and honesty.Besides,they also hold in esteem a lenient child rearing view and emphasize the important role of grandparents in child rearing.Politics mainly includes ideology and attitudes.In American mainstream society,patriarchy prevails and most women are numb to it and are comfortable with the fact of their subsidiary status.However,the situation in the Ojibwa society is quite different from that in the mainstream society.The exploration of these three aspects of the Ojibwas can help readers understand the Ojibwa community from multiple levels.The literary anthropological information in the novel not only provides readers with a way to approach the Ojibwas,but also deepens the theme of the novel and reflects Louise Erdrich's value orientation.